For those who've read Angie Fenimore's story about her suicide and subsequent return to life, you caught a glimpse of something called "pre-existence".

Have we always existed? Have we been somewhere else before we arrived on this earth kicking and screaming? Do we choose our kids, or do they choose us?

If you are one of those who doesn't hold to such spiritual things, you might think this concept very strange indeed. But deep within you, you know there is something; something nagging, something tugging annoyingly within you, that you can't get away from by pursuing the pleasures of this life.

Pre-existence answers many questions we could never answer - all those "whys".

I've now obtained a second-hand copy of Angie's book (1995 edition, out of print) Beyond the Darkness, so I can quote a fuller account of what she was shown by God about her sons while she was dead. I'll only include the relevant portions from the one you've already read, so as not to duplicate it too much.

It's deep stuff!

All emphasis is mine.

T

"I learned that just as there are laws of nature, of physics and probability, there are laws of spirit. One of these spiritual laws is that a price of suffering must be paid for every act of harm. I was painfully aware of the suffering I had caused my family and other people because of my own weaknesses. But now I saw that by ending my life, I was destroying the web of connections of people on earth, possibly altering the lives of millions, for all of us are inseparably linked, and the negative impact of one decision has the capacity to be felt throughout the world.

"My children, certainly, would be gravely harmed by my suicide. I was given a glimpse of their future, not the events of their lives but rather energy, and the character that their lives would have. By abandoning my earthly responsibilities, I would influence my children, my oldest son in particular, to make choices that would lead him away from his divine purpose. Before Alex was born, I was told, he had agreed to perform specific tasks during his life on earth. His duty was not revealed to me, but I felt the energy that his life would have up until his young adult years. He was clearly to be given a role of pivotal consequence in the lives of many. I knew that most of the pain of my death would eat at him and pull him down, destroying all hope an good in him. Without me, he might well be rendered incapable of completing his assignments on earth.

"My son Jacob's life was different because he was already performing a sacred errand for God. I was shown that I knew and loved him before I was ever born, and that he had chosen to come to earth as my son. He had taken a tremendous risk in coming to me. When I was pregnant with him, the security of my marriage had hung by a thread. Divorce seemed imminent, and I had been weighed down by guilt over how I had been living my life. I was an emotional wreck, and I felt that I was a horrible mother. One night, my despair was so great that I had carried a loaded shotgun out to the backyard and pressed it against my tonsils. I couldn't pull the trigger because of the life, Jacob, that was growing inside me."

"So Jacob came to me as a messenger of love. He came to give me a reason to stay balanced, however precariously, on the thin wire of life. He'd had the option to wait for me to mature or to chose another mother, but he had sacrificed security in order to help me. This is all that I was given about his life. I am not sure whether his life here is going to be short or if his later missions would have been jeopardized by my death, but I was allowed to glimpse only his childhood.

"I was told that my children were great and powerful spirits and that up to this point in my life, I had not deserved them. I caught a glimpse of how deeply God loves my boys, and how with my callous disregard for their welfare, I was tampering with the sacred will of God."

"The way that others mold us was revealed to me in this way: Everything has procreative power, even the dandelions in my back yard. A single dandelion is hardly a threat, but if it's too long, the tiny seeds will scatter. New weeds will sprout, which will scatter their seeds, and the cycle will continue. Contagious disease spreads in the same way; and this is the pattern that all things spiritual follow. Expressions of love that are nurtured will take root in the soul. They will grow and mature, producing new seeds that will scatter across the lives of those with whom we come in contact. And the cycle will continue.

"I had wandered through life in a haze, picking up here and there. The philosophies that are preached on daytime talk shows, differing doctrines and differing opinions, were fertilizers that did me little good. I hadn't learned how to sort the good from the harmful, and so the reality that I had accepted as truth was so muddled that the good was unrecognizable. The soil of my garden was inhospitable for healthy plants. Worse yet, I had methodically pulled any sprouts that were good, and I had fed the weeds."

"The soil that my weeds loved was tainted by the untruth that I had accepted about myself - that I had somehow asked to be hurt. I had protected abusers all my life and felt that I was a co-conspirator because of it. In this soil all my negative thoughts about myself were free to bloom and to overrun my garden. I had allowed them to crowd out most of the light within me.

"Before I took my life, I had come to an emotional crisis that forced me to look at myself honestly. After intense scrutiny I came to the conclusion that others, not me, were responsible for their hurtful actions; that I had not brought them upon myself. So I had corrected one deficiency in my soil, but I didn't complete the process to see that by this logic, I am responsible for all of the pain I have caused others. And so anger toward the faded enemies of my past germinated and created a whole new crop of lies. All the negative feelings I had embraced - hatred, self-pity, selfishness, all the rest - had grown up around me, their vines twisting, strangling me and encroaching on everyone around me, especially the people that I spent the most time with, my children."

" I was told that everything is either good or evil. There is no gray area or in-between stage. Light is light and darkness is darkness; and like oil and water, darkness and light repel each other. Sometimes the two are tightly intertwined and it is difficult to see them separately, but they never occupy the same space. That is why God could not come into the darkness of my prison but remained just outside the misty boundary. That is why I could not leave the darkness. I was filled with darkness, and my spirit was incapable of occupying space that was filled with light.

"The same principle applies within us. There is no such thing as a passive observer. Everything that we should have done but neglected to do has an impact. Darkness or evil is drawn to itself. Light and all that it encompasses is drawn to the light."

"Drifting onto the plane, the newly deceased were dressed in white robes, but their gowns were dingy. Like silent sleepwalkers, these spellbound souls descended into the darkness, arms to their sides, their expressionless faces locked in empty gazes. They came from the same direction I had, dull and hopeless casualties of life that had banked on true death, continuing to fill in the back edge of the prison as the darkness expanded to accommodate them. So sad, they were so young and so dead. As I watched them filing in the dozens, I was told that most of us who are dying now are going to a place of darkness."

"Then the powerful energy source that had transported me to the dark prison returned to liberate me. For a split second a rushing sensation engulfed me. The darkness sped past, and suddenly I was back in my body, lying on the couch. As my lungs filled with air, I was suddenly reminded of physical pain; my stomach ached and my head throbbed, and I felt heavy and weak again. But I was overcome with humble gratitude. I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge, having been granted a warning glimpse of my fate; and then once I understood, having been granted a second chance."